A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...SW Weekends! UPDATE 10/28 last day

[OhioStateBuckeye]

“Travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy!”
-Han Solo, A New Hope


Welcome to my trip report!!

Here is the link to the pre-trip report if you want to get some background:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3224742

Why should you read this?

Oh I dunno....

How about 2 Star Wars weekends!
1 24 hour day at MK!
2 days at Universal!
and hey...I'm not gonna give away all the good stuff now.

Otherwise I'll make the intros short because I want to get the boring travel day out of the way so we can get to the good stuff!!

Here is the itinerary:

Beach Club from Thursday May 15-Monday May 19

All Star Movies from Monday May 19-Sunday May 25

My BF's sister (Stephanie) and mom (Sylvia) will be joining us for most of the trip until Saturday morning.

Here we are at the after party of the Tower of Terror 10 Mile last October.

Brian is the only guy, his sister Stephanie is to the immediate right of Lotso and her friend won't be joining us on this trip. His mom didn't make it into this picture. I am the one who Lotso has his grubby paw over my face. He wasn't pleased with me because I kept telling Stephanie and Mary that he was a very bad bear (they'd never seen the movie and thought he looked cute). Truth hurts, doesn't it Lotso?



Our Southwest flight left Columbus at 515 and was scheduled to arrive at Orlando at 725.

We arrived at the airport pretty early for us (we're always late) so we had plenty of time to park the car at the green lot. There was no line at the boarding pass counter and a small line at security.

The Columbus airport is doing a new thing where you don't have to take shoes off or take laptops out of bags, I love it.

We were quickly through to our gate to discover our flight had been delayed

We got some appetizers to share at Chili's and then I got some Jeni's ice cream from a vending machine. If your not from Columbus, Jeni's is a local ice cream place that has exploded in popularity. There are some pretty interesting, unique flavors like salty caramel (that seems to be the favorite). I, however, have really never gotten into the Jeni's craze. I guess my taste buds are just pretty low brow, but it just tastes like regular ice cream to me. I got one from the vending machine thinking I'd give it another chance.



Our plane finally boarded about an hour late.

We got decent seats about halfway back and I had my usual window seat. Nothing better than looking out of a plane window.

I had saved my ice cream to eat on the plane and was a little sad to discover that I still didn't taste the greatness everyone else spoke of. Oh well.

The flight was uneventful, except when the lid popped off my ice cream container (it was shoved in the pocket under the tray table) and made a super loud noise and spew ice cream droplets all over me.

After that excitement we landed...and sat on the tarmac for half an hour. Talk about excrutiating. Disney so close yet so far. Orlando had been having really bad storms all that afternoon, so I think they just had too many planes lined up for gates.

We had FP for Soarin from 8-9 at Epcot and all my hopes of making it on time were slowly slipping away.By the time we made it to the gate and were able to make it to the Magical Express we knew we wouldn't be riding Soarin tonight, I think it was already close to 9 at that point.

We were on a bus within 5 minutes. I've only seen the bus video once, a long time ago, but I didn't like this one. It was like a huge FP+ commercial with some awful woman who was a Stacy wannabe. She was not nearly as good as Stacy. I did appreciate that before and after the video we got to watch random Disney cartoons and little behind the scenes videos and such (I guess they are available as video blogs on
Disney's website).

Beach Club was the third stop! We were so excited to get off the bus and explore the resort. Stephanie texted us our room number, 3617. Which I still remember to this day because of some dumb statement I made up...'I am not 36 or 17 years old'. Which is sooo stupid because I'm also not a lot of other ages, yet somehow it did the trick.

We were pretty tired when we got to the room but Stephanie had presents for me from Disney outlet shopping they'd done the day before!!

She got me the electrical parade train vinylmation for only $8!!

Then I got the Rescue Rangers Disney afternoon pack and the Fantasia Dinosaurs for $12. I also got a surprise gift!!

The splash mountain picture frame I'd been eying on our December trip!! I was pretty excited to get this as I didn't even know anyone listened when I pointed out something I want (it happens a lot).

Anyway we tried to get settled down because we had a very big, and early, day ahead of us in the morning.

Donald tried out the bed.



We set our alarms for 5 am and fell asleep so we could get our 4 hours of beauty rest.

Coming up on the next installment:

Which celebrity are we waking up at 5 am to see?

Ahmed Best (Jar Jar)
Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca)
Vanessa Marshall (voice of Hera Syndulla on Disney's new SW series, Rebels)
James Arnold Taylor (voice of Obi Wan on the Clone Wars series)
or
Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka on the Clone Wars series).

Will we fulfill our character photo wishlist??

-Jedi Mickey
-Leia Minnie
-R2MK
-Stormtrooper Donald
-Darth Goofy
-Greedo
-Darth Vader
-Boba Fett
-Stormtroopers
-Jawas
-Jango Fett
-Darth Maul
-Gamorrean Guard
-Zam Wessel
-Aurra Sing
-Tusken Raider
-Clonetroopers
-Ahsoka
-Asajj Ventress
-Captain Cody
-COmmander Rex
-Anakin Skywalker
-Mace Windu
-Kit Fisto
-Shaak Ti
-R2
-3PO
-Luke Skywalker
-Princess Leia
-Cantina Band
-Padme
-Han Solo


You'll have to tune in next time to find out...

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

* reserved for chapter links.

 

[HumblePie]

Cant wait to read all about it!

 

[stacy~**]

I'm here!

I too am fascinated by the Jeni's vending machine. I can't ever see myself getting anything from it...on the way to vacation I am saving calories for Disney food and on the way home I am stuffed and gross feeling! Might be cool for someone on a layover that isn't from Cbus to give it a try.

Sorry about the flight delay and missing your Soarin FP. Arrival day planning can be tough!

How sweet that you got some arrival gifts!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Cant wait to read all about it!

Welcome! Hope you are ready for some amazing Disney magic

I'm here!

I too am fascinated by the Jeni's vending machine. I can't ever see myself getting anything from it...on the way to vacation I am saving calories for Disney food and on the way home I am stuffed and gross feeling! Might be cool for someone on a layover that isn't from Cbus to give it a try.

Sorry about the flight delay and missing your Soarin FP. Arrival day planning can be tough!

How sweet that you got some arrival gifts!

Hi Stacy!! I wanted to ask you a favor and see if you'd do a quick write up for my report about your 24 hour day experience, or your SW weekends experience. I didn't think you were doing a report, are you? And if your not I'd love to hear about your experiences in my report.

Yeah arrival days can be tough, we usually have smooth traveling so I was hopeful about the Soarin FP, but it just wasn't meant to be.



I just finished up putting borders on and editing our 20 million photo pass pictures, so hopefully I'll be able to use those on my next installment, which I'm sooo excited about writing.

 

[stacy~**]

Hi Stacy!! I wanted to ask you a favor and see if you'd do a quick write up for my report about your 24 hour day experience, or your SW weekends experience. I didn't think you were doing a report, are you? And if your not I'd love to hear about your experiences in my report.

.

I have gone back and forth on trying to write a TR but for the time being I have decided against it! I am not the best writer to begin with and took very sketchy notes....oh and a few days I took very few pictures!

I will happily chime in with our 24 hour day experience when you get to that point (spoiler...we didn't make it for the whole 24 hours.).

I was thinking we should meet for a coffee or something sometime....I can always use more IRL Disney friends!!

 

[CarlaLovesDisney]

Oooh fun! Can't wait to keep reading!

 

[BebopAngel88]

Joining!!! I read your past reports and now I actually get to join in the beginning!

 

[DexLabDeeDee]

I'm here and excited!

 

[Meldev]

How fun!! Ready for next post!

 

[IheartDDuck]

I'm joining!

We were in exactly the same situation as you on the 15th. Our plane was set to land from Milwaukee at 7:15pm, and we didn't land until close to 8pm and where in the whole debacle of waiting on the tarmac, and then the hot mess at the baggage claim!

Can't wait to hear more.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Well this has taken longer than I thought. I was gone for about 4 days to attend Firefly, a music festival. I got to see Foo Fighters, Weezer, Outkast, Twenty One Pilots, Imagine Dragons and many more.

I also got to meet one of my heroes:



The band that he is in, Bad Things, was playing the festival as well.

Anyway, I now have all my photopass and I am going to post our star wars weekend day tomorrow!

I have gone back and forth on trying to write a TR but for the time being I have decided against it! I am not the best writer to begin with and took very sketchy notes....oh and a few days I took very few pictures!

I will happily chime in with our 24 hour day experience when you get to that point (spoiler...we didn't make it for the whole 24 hours.).

I was thinking we should meet for a coffee or something sometime....I can always use more IRL Disney friends!!

I'm glad you'll post your experience! My trip report is really going to get going quickly.

We really should meet up!

Oooh fun! Can't wait to keep reading!

Hello!

Joining!!! I read your past reports and now I actually get to join in the beginning!

Sweet, hope you have lots of comments!

I'm here and excited!

Welcome!

How fun!! Ready for next post!

Its coming!

I'm joining!

We were in exactly the same situation as you on the 15th. Our plane was set to land from Milwaukee at 7:15pm, and we didn't land until close to 8pm and where in the whole debacle of waiting on the tarmac, and then the hot mess at the baggage claim!

Can't wait to hear more.

Nothing worse than being so close to WDW and getting delayed like that, ugh. Glad you are joining, I also love Donald Duck!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one, a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. …Hmm? On what he was doing.”

We were definitely ready, no matter what Yoda said.

We jumped out of bed at 5 with no misgivings about the lack of sleep we had....OK, maybe I was tempted to just go back to sleep since no one else was waking up. But I got over it and woke Stephanie up from the dead. The others would meet up with us later, so off we went.

The walk to DHS was pretty pleasant at this time of morning, we just saw a couple joggers along the walking path. Which always made me wonder...do these people not walk about 10 miles a day at WDW? Who needs to jog while at Disney? I don't understand.



We kept desperately trying to spot actor lines and finally we saw one...it stretched all the way from the front gate down to the boat dock. Ugh, not good. We wandered around trying to figure out which line we needed.

Finally we figured it out and we weren't in the long line, that was actually for Ahmed Best (Jar Jar). Peter Mayhew (our actor!) actually had a pretty short line, and no one ended up getting behind us for about another half hour

The merchandise line was probably the second longest line after Ahmed Best. This was pretty understandable since it was the first day of SWW (Star Wars Weekends) and everyone wanted to make sure to get their loots.



The day was starting to get a little brighter.

The line started to move through security at about 6. Then we got our color coded wrist bands, but we still had to wait in line to get our FP with our return time. At this time a lot of people were starting to line up at the regular gates and I was getting worried that we would be getting in behind all of them, but I needn't have worried because when we finally got our FP times (1015), we got to go to about 8 turnstiles reserved just for FP autograph people.

When they opened the gates we managed to get pretty close for the Stormtrooper pre-show.

There were 2 stormtroopers on little segway type platforms who taunted us for being help back behind a little regular rope.





The stormtroopers finally let us go and we were off!! Stephanie and I had discussed our plan, which was to run straight for Chewbacca. She really took me quite literally...the rope dropped and she was just gone. I'm pretty sure she might have sprinted. Gone to light speed. By the time I caught up with her she was second in line for Chewbacca.

We met a nice Disboarder and her family behind us in line. Her daughter had a pretty sweet jedi outfit and was getting a poster signed by the characters.

Chewbacca came out at about 8:04, 4 minutes late. Which is ok, wookies do what they want. While we were waiting we took a series of beautiful speeder bike pictures...



Stephanie.

And me...speeder bike got away from me a little.



But I got it under control.



Chewbacca really enjoyed my autograph book! You can see it a little bit in this picture, its a wookie hair auto book! And it even made wookie noises.







Stephanie stood up a little bit better against Chewie's height.




Having been the second group to meet Chewie, we were doing excellent with time. Next up on the list was my favorite prequels character, Darth Maul!

On the way we passed Darth Vader with all his paparazzi lined up for pictures.



There were maybe 10 groups ahead of us for Darth Maul. Being the nasty (albeit super awesome) sith he is, Darth Maul decided not to come out until 9. It threw off our schedule, but he was so sweet it was worth it. He was definitely in character and tried to stare us both down.

Stephanie gave it right back to him.



But I was a little starstruck.





Our other 2 group members had managed to enter the park by now and decided to ride Star Tours, they said they only waited 5 minutes.

We discovered the a lot of the characters weren't even out this early. None of the roaming characters come out until after the parade.

So we wandered over by the stage to see this unfortunate scene:



Looks like Han Solo would have to miss yet another SWW due to being encased in carbonite.

Stephanie and I headed over to see which of the Jedi Council members were out while Brian and his mom found this tasty looking book:



We actually ended up getting lucky and got a two-fer, Mace Windu came out and Anakin stuck around for a few minutes to chat about some recent Council business.



We decided to get back into the Council line to see who might be meeting when we came back around...

You'll have to tune in again to see how our meeting with Peter Mayhew goes. And how will our feel the force package work out for the parade?

 

[Meldev]

Fantastic....can't wait to read more!!

 

[stacy~**]

So after WDW you went to California (are you doing a TR for that?) then a music festival? Sounds like a pretty sweet summer!!

I have no idea what you are talking about for the majority of this update! I really had good intentions of attempting to watch at least 1SW movie before our trip but it didn't happen. Someday!

I will say I am impressed with the amount of characters you are getting to! When we were briefly at DHS on May 24th those crowds were just crazy.

Keep the updates coming.....

I also wanted to tell you that on a complete whim we are going back in August and I started a PTR which I am going to attempt a post a day until we go so I figure at some point I will share some of my details from May if you want to check it out. Plus....its really lonely right now there!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Fantastic....can't wait to read more!!

Coming up soon!

So after WDW you went to California (are you doing a TR for that?) then a music festival? Sounds like a pretty sweet summer!!

I have no idea what you are talking about for the majority of this update! I really had good intentions of attempting to watch at least 1SW movie before our trip but it didn't happen. Someday!

I will say I am impressed with the amount of characters you are getting to! When we were briefly at DHS on May 24th those crowds were just crazy.

Keep the updates coming.....

I also wanted to tell you that on a complete whim we are going back in August and I started a PTR which I am going to attempt a post a day until we go so I figure at some point I will share some of my details from May if you want to check it out. Plus....its really lonely right now there!

Yeah my summer has been busy but I really don't have anything else planned. Just a crazy June

Oh if you think that is a lot of characters just wait!

Wait...you are going back in August? It wouldn't be for the villains event, would it?!

I will definitely look for the report!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

“Would somebody get this big walking carpet out of my way?!”
-Princess Leia, A New Hope



Mace Windu was there again...but so was Kit Fisto!! That is the green guy for you Star Wars illiterate. I have no idea why, but he is my favorite Jedi from the prequels. Maybe it is because he is always smiling



After they taught us some force moves it was time to head on to the next adventure.

Stephanie is obsessed with magic shots, and when we found a photopass photog all by themselves next to a backdrop we knew we'd found them.







Fighting Darth Vader was pretty hard work. By this time it was 10 am, so we decided to find Peter Mayhew. We walked all the way around the celebrities at Echo Lake before realizing that Peter had special accommodations inside the building where the kids meet for their instructions for the Academy.

These fastpasses for the celebrities worked great! We only had to wait behind one group and then we met the wookie himself.



He signed our pictures and couldn't have been nicer. The only thing is I think he looks a tad like Howard Stern...

By the time Stephanie and I met back up with Brian and his mom it was a little after 10:30. We wanted to find where to check in for the Feel the Force package. The email told us check in didn't start until 11, but when we found the check in booth and got inside there were already a bunch of people already there. All the front row spots were taken

We managed to find second row spots to the left of the stage near the end of the reserved section and I was able to stand behind a stroller, so at least I could see. Then we found the best part of the parade reserved seating...unlimited Mickey bars!!! Such a sweet perk. Mickey bars are my treat of choice at WDW. They also had fruit bars and bottled water, sprite, coke and diet coke. These were unlimited so we all got ice cream and stocked up on water for the rest of the day.

Such a pretty day:



It really was, it wasn't too hot and the humidity didn't feel that high.

There was a little pre-show before the parade started with these 2:



Then they stayed on the stage to introduce all the characters and celebrities as they came down the street.

The parade was led by the big cheese:



Can I please have his xwing?!



Next up was the 501st! I love these guys. It is a fan group and they make all their costumes, and the costumes have to be movie quality. I always wanted to join as an Imperial Guard or an Xwing pilot.



Here are my Imperial Guards, their Emperor Palpatine was real good, I'm not sure why Disney didn't have 1 available for meet and greets.







Bounty hunters:



Some tuskens:



they'll be back, and in even greater numbers.



Next up is the Rebel Legion:







Love the wookie!







continued in next post...

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

....parade continued

The celebrities were up next:



Vanessa Marshall will be providing the voice of Hera Syndull in the new Rebels cartoon. She has done voices for lots of other shows including Billy and Mandy, Fish Hooks and she voices Black Widow for the Avengers cartoon.

They also had some of the Rebels characters for the parade, but for some reason they weren't available for meet and greets.





Ahmed Best, better known as Jar Jar Binks.



Peter Mayhew, or Chewbacca.



Jango Fett was chasing behind. In this picture you can also see where all the kids picked to be in the parade stop and gather.



I'm still not really sure what the flag holders were supposed to be. In Phantom Menace for the pod race they have people carrying flags, maybe that is what its supposed to be?



The morning show segway stormtroopers closed out the parade.



After them, our little reserved section rope was dropped and we were allowed to head to the front of the stage ahead of the rest of the crowds.

James Arnold Taylor introduced everyone and get us all ready for an awesome star wars weekend!



After the show we were ready to hunt down some roaming characters!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

“I happen to like… nice men.”
-Princess Leia, Empire Strikes Back

There would be no nice men where we were going...



The bounty hunters were unleashed!

I pretty much had to shoulder check the gamorrean guard to get him to stop for a picture:





These guys were all just free roaming. They'd stay in one area for a picture or 2 and then they'd move on, even if a line was forming. So you kind of had to chase them down.

Tusken Raider:




Aurra Sing:



You have to wonder how much fun the CMs have who get tagged to play characters like Aurra Sing. Ok...just walk around and scowl and act like your better than everyone.

Zam Wessel, I asked her why she wasn't in her true form and she told me it would be too dangerous.



I like this picture because it looks like I'm contemplating the mysteries of the universe.



Brian 'accidentally' got in the background for this one. So too bad for him, he got in a character pic

Since we were right next to the Fetts meeting spot, we got in a 10 minute line for Jango Fett.





Since we were already right next to it we decided now was a good time to get our SWW merch at Darth's Mall (hahaha, Disney is so clever).



Earlier in the morning the line had been super long, but we only had to wait about 10 minutes. We tried to take pictures with the Arasma app, but it took a lot of messing around to get it to work.



Darth Maul was overlooking his mall:





We didn't get any food here, but once again I appreciated the clever naming:



Stephanie and I ended up getting SW name tags. They were $10 and you got to pick your home planet and your name was translated into the SW language. I chose Corellia, since that is where Han Solo is from.

I also got my first weekend vinylmation, R2MK. Which is R2D2 with mickey mouse ears.

They had a bunch of random cool stuff on display on the way out.





By the way Disney, you really need to have Pete out for some sort of meet and greet. Especially since he has his own circus in MK but is never there.

I really liked this fire extinguisher:



By this time it was way past lunch time and we'd only eaten a handful of snacks and breakfast stuff so we ate at Pizza Planet!



After we finished our delicious pizza it was almost time for Stars of the Saga! We had FP+ so we got in line about 15 minutes before the show started.

 

[DexLabDeeDee]

I can't believe all that you've done already and the day isn't over yet! Good for you!!